NOT A GOOD SIGN…. Paul Krugman noted the other day, “Bobby Jindal makes fun of ‘volcano monitoring,’ and soon afterwards Mt. Redoubt erupts. Susan Collins makes sure that funds for pandemic protection are stripped from the stimulus bill, and the swine quickly attack. What else did the right oppose recently?”
Well, as it turns out, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) doesn’t want to let the Senate vote on President Obama’s nominee to head FEMA.
A Louisiana senator is stalling Florida emergency management director Craig Fugate’s nomination as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Fugate had sailed through his nomination hearing and Monday cleared the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by a unanimous voice vote. Republican Sen. David Vitter said, however, that he’d blocked Fugate because of concerns he has with FEMA.
“I have a hold on the FEMA nomination because I sent a list of hurricane recovery questions and projects to FEMA, many of which have not been adequately addressed,” Vitter said in a statement. “I’m eager to get full responses and meet with the nominee immediately.”
Fugate, of course, was chosen to lead FEMA in large part because of his impressive work responding to hurricanes in Florida. His nomination has garnered bipartisan support and Fugate was supposed to be easily confirmed.
But Vitter, who is seeking re-election next year despite a prostitution scandal that undermined his “family values” agenda, isn’t quite satisfied.
Given the recent history with Jindal and Collins, I guess this means we should be bracing for a natural disaster sometime soon.
